At Stormy's behest, Cassie had finally walked through the door and immediately stopped once it closed, staring down at the winding flight of stairs. The new trainee, no even a trainee really, was still shocked by all the odd magic things that she was running in to. Floating stairs weren't supposed to exist, at least not outside of fiction. Yet here they were, and here she was. A tentative step was taken, testing the waters, making sure the steps didn't collapse on her like the intro sequence to Kingdom Hearts. When she found they were stable and not made of stained glass, Cassie continued forward, pace careful and tedious.

This was all still just too much. The water works and the stumbling over her words had stopped, her breathing had finally come to an even cantor, but her mind was still running frantically, processing just what was going on. This seemed more like a fever dream than real life, a dream more immersive and frighteningly accurate than any other.

But when Cassie reached the bottom of the stairs, she had to accept this wasn't a dream. There was none of the thick haze that covered her dreams like a scene from Silent Hill, and more importantly she wasn't Natasha Romanoff, Wonder Woman, Gwen Stacey, or Koriand'r. She was just Cassie, an average nineteen year old girl that was suddenly becoming something so much more, as she would find out later. Her own origin story was just unfolding.

The assigned boots they'd put on her as she slept clacked against the floor, and she was hit by a wall of whispers. It was an energy, ambivalent and overarching. It flowed around her as a current slips around an island, culminating in a space just above her head. Only then did Cassie notice the entire room was made of hundreds of tiny tablets, all with faint glowing runes that looked like crude drawings of weapons, reminiscent of a five year old's doodle. The energy she felt and the whispers she heard seemed to get louder and more present the more her eyes focused on one in particular - a bat. As in, the animal - how was a nocturnal rodent a weapon? Unless it was a Bat-arang?

No, not even this weird place could go that far.

Still, her hand slowly crept up to touch the bat bearing tablet and the whispers stopped in reverent awe, the energy stopped flowing. This had to be her weapon, then. Stormy said the weapon picked the Hunter, so that meant she was being chosen. A scene straight out of Diagon Alley. When her hand brushed the tablet, she felt a click in her brain - an empty room filled with black liquid, another cog turning the opposite way of the well oiled machine.

There was a brief moment of silence, a shifting of silk, the settling of something not quite heard.

Cassandra Stephanie. It whispered in her head, speaking her name like tasting a new wine. I am Tendaji. You will not give me a nickname, and you will do as I say.

But-- what if--

Shut up. I know all you do, and I have seen everything already. You are weak, a newborn. You must trust me and heed my orders. Without me, you will drown.

Y--yes, sir.

Tendaji stopped talking, sitting back in her head. Cassie frowned, only then realizing there was a weight in her hands - a coiled wire, a blade shaped like a bat (holy s**t it was a bat-arang), and a ring of steel.

Tendaji, I--

Haven't seen a weapon like me? I am very aware, child. Now is not the time for your drivel. You will learn.